The “talent game” of the Lakers and Magic, with three top stars and several high-ranking shows on the court, the result was that the whole game was the falling draft Austin Reeves.
Reeves scored 35 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists in the 30-minute debut, and rolled the whole game with positive and negative values +25 points. The Lakers can beat the Magic with 111-105 thrills, and several starts really give Reeves one.
Most people are familiar with Reeves’s inspirational character stories. But from Caruso to Reeves, who helped the Lakers dig out these hidden treasures?
Jessie Buss, head of Lakers scout department and assistant general manager, is the younger brother of Lakers boss Jenny buss.
Over the years, the Lakers’ Palace fighting drama has been very lively. Jenny and Jim Buss have fought for many years around the power struggle. With Jim stepping down and Jenny taking power, the Palace fight between brother and sister was over.
At the beginning, Jim’s resignation was also his own fault. His trading and signing operations failed countless times, and he was extremely arrogant in the draft. Jim’s most classic sentence is: “What’s the difficulty in evaluating the talent of a player? You go to the bar to find 10 fans and ask them to rate young players. The results they give are no different from those of professional scouts.”
After Jim stepped down, his younger brothers Jessie and Joy bass began to enter the management to help the elder sister. Jessie is in charge of the Scout department, while Joey is in charge of the development team of the Lakers league. The former is in charge of digging up new stars and digging out unknown but valuable players, the two brothers built a production line of low rank show and falling talent show.
In recent years’s draft, the most successful part of the Lakers is not to use Gao Shun to select Ingram, Lanzo-Bauer, DeAngelo-Russell and Randal. In fact, the Lakers dug out Kuzma, Josh Hart and Larry Nance in the back of the first round, and picked zupac and Jordan Clarkson in the second round, dug out Caruso, for such excellent talent shows as Reeves, these skills are more brilliant and receive more favorable comments. The credit for these lies in Jessie’s “digging”.
Jessie, 35, is the youngest child of the late Lakers boss Jerry Bass. For family reasons, Jessie has been a legendary scout Bill Betka of the Lakers since he was 18 years old, learning how to investigate new stars from the perspective of scouts. After a long period of accumulation, Jessie gradually became independent. In 2012, he entered the management and became the head of the Scout department. In 2015, he was promoted to assistant general manager. Pelinka also has to respect Jessie’s opinion in the draft.
In the field of scouts, one has to run more and the other has to watch more. Jessie is not a absentee boss-style rich second generation. He examines the players’ pursuit of self-discipline. Jessie not only flies around the United States and even around the world, but also uses the data and video system at hand to watch a large number of videos.
“Many of our scouts, including myself, we watch 3-4 games a day.” Jessie revealed that it was normal for him to watch videos 8 hours a day.
Different from Jim in those days, Jessie respected the opinions of everyone in the Scout group very much. He had a huge team under him, this ensures that the Lakers scouts can not only know the new stars in the college basketball arena like the palm of their hands, but they will not miss any information even if there are some good seedlings in training camps across the United States and those new stars rising overseas. Like the Lakers’ second-round show Christie this year, the Lakers have noticed him since he attended Curry’s training camp in high school. Mihailuke was discovered by the Lakers at Nike basketball summit.
In addition, the Lakers’ investigation cycle for a new star is extremely long, usually lasting at least 3-4 years, because the Lakers scouts know that Taobao is not a one-time deal and talent is not the only one, they will judge a player’s prospects through a growth curve.
The Lakers will draw up a draft list of at least 60 people every year, and divide the draft according to their talent, compatibility with the team, personal character and other characteristics, the Lakers will pick up leaks by buying two-round signatures and giving two-way contracts when they encounter good seedlings that rank high on the Lakers’ simulated draft list but are ignored by other teams.
Reeves is one of the cases that best reflect the Lakers’ Taobao capabilities. Since Reeves played in huitata State University, the Lakers have been eyeing Reeves. At that time, Reeves was just a ballless shooter with certain adhesive properties, and this type of players caught a lot. Later, Reeves transferred to the University of Oklahoma. He was asked to take more responsibility for scoring. The Lakers noticed the changes of Reeves. The scouts believed that he could become an excellent role player.
“I went to the scene to watch his match with Texas Christian University. He fought for the floor ball, made offensive fouls, and helped his teammates integrate into the attack. After that game, I thought he had the talent to become the first round show, he has a full set of weapons bags.” Jessie talked about Reeves.
In the 2021draft conference, Reeves was willing to be defeated by the Lakers. One of the main reasons was that he was moved by the blueprint painted by Jessie and joy. What they gave Reeves was not only the contract, there is also a clear development plan. Caruso’s success gave the Lakers confidence and made Reeves full of confidence in the Lakers.
Facts have proved once again that the Lakers have a unique vision. Last season Reeves squeezed into rotation early, which made Jessie sigh with emotion that “the speed of getting on top exceeded my imagination”. This season, Reeves has become an indispensable puzzle for the Lakers through an off-season weight gain and hard training.
For the Lakers, the scout department in charge of Jessie’s operation is already their treasure. In recent years, without the success of the Scout department, many operations of Pelinka were impossible.
In 2019, the Lakers were able to exchange Anthony Davis, thanks to the accumulation of early draft picks. When the Lakers won the championship, under the condition of insufficient salary space, Kuzma and Caruso played an important role, and their annual salaries added up to less than 5 million dollars. This season, Reeves led 1.56 million dollars and played the level of super sixth. The Lakers got a second ball holding point with 3D attribute at such a low price, the annual salary of tens of millions of dollars for players of this style on the market is the starting price.
“At any time, when you can choose a player who only occupies a small part of the salary cap with the selection right behind the first round, it will be of great benefit to the team building.” Jessie said, “If you can rank low on Taobao or dig out the talent show, you don’t need to free up salary space to chase players of the same level. If you train them well, you can renew your contract with them, this is very helpful to our salary system.”
The value of The Lakers scout department is gaining more and more recognition. Sam viseini, The Athletic draft expert in American media, said: “I am not sure which teams have achieved comparable results in draft picks with The Lakers in recent years, the Lakers completed a large number of low rank and drop draft Taobao.”
During the off-season this year, the Lakers will face the trouble of happiness again. Reeves is qualified to sign a contract of up to $50 million for 4 years. This time, Pelinka should not let Reeves go like Caruso, wasting Jessie’s efforts, right?